A 17th century Mughal miniature painting raises haunting questions about climate change in South Asia
- Noor Ahmed
- Oct 12
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 12
Noor Ahmed
During the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, whose life at court was often dominated by women, including his beloved Empress Mumtaz Mahal, paintings depicting individual women became much more common than under previous reigns.
Sister of the empress, daughter to Shah Jahan’s Grand Vizier (prime minister), and wife to his
Mughal military administrator, Farzana Bibi was the subject and title of the deeply alluring painting Farzana Bibi [Lady/Mistress Farzana], a lady rumoured to be as fearsome and beautiful as the warning of the landscape that surrounds her in this artwork.
Despite portraits of royal ladies being extremely scarce, the portrait of Bibi Farzana has many
iterations and this particular folio is likely from an imperial Mughal album produced during Shah
Jahan’s reign that was reportedly taken to Iran after ruler Nadir Shah’s 1739 sacking of Delhi.
Painted in what was then called ‘Northern India’, the titular figure stands in a field of flowers holding a plucked nargis [narcissus] stalk in her right henna-stained hand and caressing a peacock flower bush with her left, depicting a moment from the past that, ecologically speaking, could not exist today in present-day Pakistan.
Today, neither the artist nor the subject nor the viewers would have believed that this combination of flowers could have naturally grown together, because of how varied their climatic and soil requirements are. Depicted no further than 11 centimetres apart, we see sun, heat and humidity-loving flowers, alongside flowers that require the cold mountainous conditions of the region’s north to survive.
A contemporary reading of the painting, particularly in light of the devastating climate-change driven floods that ravage South Asia each monsoon season, begs the important question: is the natural environment depicted using opaque watercolour, gold and ink on the 23.6 by 14 cm wasli surface simply artistic license, or has climate change caused our ecology to transform so drastically since this was painted in circa 1640-1650?
In the foreground, one can see the flowers that, in 2025, thrive in Pakistan’s north. On the bottom left, nargis flowers bloom and, next to them, right behind the protagonist, a single rendering of a vibrant red tulip is wistfully angled away from the subject, despite the fact that Bibi Farzana’s dress also features a brocaded belt with tulips, insinuating her beauty, passion and pleasure. The rest of her attire, however, with its transparent dress with gold trim and odhni [shawl], likely made of mulmul [weightless muslin fabric], implies a more temperate climate.
One cannot talk about red tulips without thinking of decorated Mughal court painter Mansur’s
depiction of a red tulip from his studies of the flowers of Kashmir Valley, which he undertook while accompanying Shah Jahan’s father, Emperor Jehangir, on his visit to Kashmir in 1621. Although Mansur likely passed away before this uncredited artist painted Bibi Farzana, the artist would have undoubtedly studied Mansur’s flowers of the Kashmir Valley.
Also seen in the foreground are the velvety magenta kalgha [cockscomb], and traditional gainda
[marigolds] that thrive in well-drained soil and are seen adorning everything from fields to sidewalks across Punjab and parts of Sindh in the hot summer months.
The most striking floral rendition, which has also been given the largest relative space on the picture plane, is the orange caesalpinia pulcherrima. Commonly referred to as the peacock flower, the bush is arranged as a visual foil to Bibi Farzana, standing upright and nearly as tall as she is. An evergreen plant of the tropics that is commonly seen in Karachi, its characteristic orange and yellow flowers and rounded twice pinnate green leaves are painted as if moving in the wind. The orange of the flowers is liberally mirrored in the painting of the sky and, more precisely again, in the cluster of gaindas in the foreground by Bibi Farzana’s feet, guiding the movement of the viewer’s eye around the painting.
And while it is important to note that Mughal painters of the time would often combine all manner of accumulated flora and fauna in their paintings and use the painting as an opportunity to show their skills in both rendering and depicting studies from life, one cannot look at Bibi Farzana today with what flanks the subject right and left, and not think of flood-ravaged Buner, where the nargis is supposed to grow wild and free, nor of urban-flooded Karachi, where the peacock flower may soon only be remembered through imaginings of the past.
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